


No hind can pursue

by Out_Of_Custody



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 8x02 has consequences, Arya Nightslayer, Arya makes a decision, F/M, Future Fic, Smut, Storm's End, Talking About It, gendry baratheon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 17:25:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18743641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Out_Of_Custody/pseuds/Out_Of_Custody
Summary: Any Lady would have been lucky to have him. Any. They should have been clamouring to get their hands on this gentle giant; they should have been making doe-eyes at him, cooing over him. There would have been a perfect fawn for him, the most beautiful roe who would have held his hand, gently, and who would have had no bite, who would have guided him through the woods, peacefully.





	No hind can pursue

**Author's Note:**

> Still in denial. Probably forever. Will go down with this ship 100%

And what now? The shadows seem to whisper to her, exotic trees drawing outlandish shapes against sandy soil that she had come to despise all those years ago. She wonders how Sansa manages to hold on to her own mask but… Really, she shouldn‘t. Her sister might not have gone to learn in the House of Black and White, but she had most certainly learned the face game almost as well as Arya had.

So what now? She sighs as she leans against the balustrade and lets her eyes try to find the farthest point, out in the sea – it‘s dark and her eyes lose focus; just enough, just _so_. Until her senses blot out and her mind can retreat and take stock of what‘s there to have.

There‘s not little to be had, she knows. And the one thing that bothers her most…

She thinks of his face. Of those eyes when she broke his heart, knowingly and with such precision she, too, knows he‘s felt the pain she‘s felt when he turned from her after she‘d offered him a place in her family. It‘s curious, she thinks, how these things tend to come around. Only…

This time, there is a third participant. Arya‘s hand wanders down to her flat abdomen, the belly that she fears will be protruding and hindering her in a few months time.

Try as she might, she knows she cannot delude herself into thinking that her food-sickness in the mornings, her bad sleeping and her augmented grumpiness is anything else but what it truly is. The battle for the Red Keep had pulled her attention elsewhere and by now… By now the seed she knows she carries within her has taken root. Deep enough for her to show symptoms she‘s had to keep from Sansa and the clever women within these walls. She can‘t. Not yet.

Cersei is dead. Her list is complete. It is done and it is gone now; all of them. Even The Hound, who spluttered over a spear into the darkness that she‘d seen better in than anyone – she knows that the javelin would have met her head. It hadn‘t. She had been almost sad to see him go. If only because he had been a comrade, if reluctant at first; someone who‘d taken up the shield and the sword with them, rebelled against the blonde on the throne with them, taken a Keep with them, fought and bled in the Long Night with them.

It‘s the first time since it had all started that Arya finds herself almost without a purpose.

Almost.

 

–

 

She visits the Crypts because, incidentally, that is where she feels her father most. Father and Syrio. One dancing ever so lightly over sands, barely even leaving imprints. The other born into plowing through snow that would wash away his tracks before he‘d ever reached his target. Sansa, thank the Stars, had not insisted she wear a dress – but she had to admit that…

Two months after she has last seen her smith, her britches are getting a little tight. Her breasts are tender in their bindings – bindings that she _needs_ now. She hates the feeling and yet…

Her hands brush over her stomach. Still flat. Still strong.

She‘s not a mother. Fuck if she could she would _not_ have this one. But she can't. And she doesn‘t know where to go.

(And she‘s no one‘s Lady. Never has been. Never will be. Lord Baratheon deserves… _needs_ a lady. Soft-spoken, patient, willing to teach him. Doesn't he? She‘s none of that. Right? )

 

–

 

Why the Imp, of all people, finds her is a small mystery to her but she supposes one of them would have had to sooner or later. Even as she spills a bowl of water over herself to cool down from the infernal heat that is making the Unsullied wickedly quick and her ruefully grateful for her teachings in Braavos, she knows that her time in hiding must come to an end at some point.

The man has enough tact, she thinks, to wait until her training partners have gone their ways, parting with a smile and a few words in Lys’ Valeryan that she has gobbled up along her way. “Is it really wise to be practising at sword-play in your condition, my lady?”

She doesn’t still, because that is a motion that will betray her more than anything else could. But as she wipes Needle of the accumulated dirt and puts it back into its designated resting place at her side, she doesn’t actually answer. Other than giving the smaller man a look that might have – and has – made taller men run with the tail between their legs.

The Imp merely smirks: “Come now. Some of us are actually a little observant, you know.”

Apparently. She doesn’t think the maids have noticed yet. Or Sansa. Stars she hopes Sansa hasn’t noticed yet. “If my condition is what should have kept me from training, I‘d never even have started.”

She remembers saying something similar once, to a taller man. But banishes the thought out of her mind; she’s been thinking about him all too often recently. Often enough to know that her thoughts will only turn in circles.

When she moves to exit the courtyard, she waits expectantly, shortening her strides easily and silently to allow the man to walk by her side. She knows he’s smart and right now, maybe she can need the input of an outsider. Only with full information could she draw the bigger picture.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have much of anything new. “...What are you going to do with it, if you don’t mind me asking, my lady?”

She does, actually, mind him asking, to be entirely truthful. Mostly because she’s asked herself that question for a thousand times now and it’s not new and she still… “I don‘t know.”

Moon Tea will not help her now. And while the House of Black and White had, indeed, taught her to impeach an heir of ever growing to see the light of day, the procedures are… harrowing for the mothers. She doesn’t know if she wants to be compromised like that. It doesn’t sit well with her either, she supposes, that this is not just _anyone_ growing in her.

They arrive at a small balcony, of which the Red Keep has so many, looking out over the harbour and Flea Bottom and when her eyes catch his she knows that this has been no coincidence. She should have wanted to go down there, at some point, but has not found the strength to do so recently.

“The realm is new, my lady”, the short man says kindly, “Many of our rules have been overthrown and burnt, but--”

She knows where he’s going even before her ears pick up on the steady clang of hammer against anvil. “But not new enough to allow for a child out of wedlock. Not even for the Nightslayer.”

“No.”

 

–

 

She rides to Storm‘s End. Because she knows there‘s a fight there, waiting to be fought and she‘s never stepped down from a challenge. The trek is small, but slow on her account, and it doesn‘t take the men quite as long as she‘d hoped to figure out _why_ she is making them go slow.

But her food barely stays down lest she digs up wild turnips and plucks fresh fruit from the low-hanging branches and it‘s Jaime Lannister – of all fuckin‘ people – who gives her a knowing look first over dinner on their fourth day, when he hands her a bowl of fruit instead of the strongly seasoned (salty) venison the rest of the men have. She’s been throwing it up forever it seems.

Ser Brienne of Tarth takes up almost constant vigil at her side and The Golden Hand sneaks through the camp like Cat of the Canals once has. If there are any words spoken about her, they do not reach her ears.

 

–

 

“M‘lady.”

The day is fresh, the sun out behind grey clouds and the wind nips at her face, but she has eyes for the small welcome committee that has come to stand to greet them. He is still tall. Still muscled. His shirts of yellow exchanged for something more suitable to him, in her opinion, sensible grey with a throat ornament of antlers. She wonders if he’s made it himself. It’s understated, but clear in its message.

Next to him stands the old smuggler, Davos Seaworth, a man, she knows, the legitimized Baratheon heir holds in high regard. Stannis had, too at the beginning. Not so much in the end, however. At his other side is a man she doesn’t know.

“Lord Baratheon.” She is curt when she nods, trusting her mount to still as she makes to swing off the horse as her personal guard has. Ser Brienne is already making towards her when she swings her leg over the neck of her horse.

“My Lady, don‘t-”, the landing jarrs her more than she would have expected. She clenches her eyes and her teeth against the sensation in her lower belly.

A hand steadies her at her right shoulder and Jaime is there, lifting his cloak just enough to hide her from the curious onlookers. Brienne is right there.

“Easy there, Lady Stark. You‘ve had a long trek.” the words are only for show. It’s the eyes that ask the questions. _Are you alright._

She doesn’t clutch at them but she allows her hands to flitter over her stomach, reassuring herself. Reassuring them. “I am fine.” she says softly when she has the feeling that she truly is. “I am. Thank you, Sers.”

When she turns, Lord Baratheon is closer than before, only a few steps, barely an arm’s length away from the snout of her horse. His brows are furrowed and Ser Seaworth has a curious look on his face, but they speak nothing of her blunder.

Gendry takes the reigns of her horse, carefully but assuredly, when he speaks to them again. “We have the stables prepared for the horses, and rooms for the men. If you wish. I suppose you would like to rest for a night.”

Jaime smiles a little and she thinks he might actually like the new Lord Baratheon, for what reasons, she is unclear. “At the least.”, her guard says with something like kindness in his voice that betrays his emotions towards the young man.

Maybe it’s because only he has realized that the young Lord himself hasn’t quite caught up yet. “You are not here merely to pass through?”

And it’s such a Gendry thing to ask isn’t it? Arya has to smile. It’s such a thing for him, this cluelessness at times. When she knows he is so capable of seeing more than many of them are. She takes it upon herself to step closer to him and he bends to her when her voice is quiet.

“My Lord… Storm‘s End is far away from any haphazard route. We have come here not by accident but design.”

“May I ask what for?”

His voice is a smooth rumble that she cannot believe she has missed so. But she has. The task before her is still ever so daunting but-- But she is safe here. Whatever else has happened between them, she knows, with certainty, that they are not enemies. Are not… He is not angry at her. Hurt maybe, but willing – it seems – to put it aside for the sake of good relations with her (with the Starks; with the Court). She can work from that, she decides.

For now though, she cannot tell him. The time is not yet and she doesn’t want to do this in front of everyone. “May we discuss that in private?”

Certainly she has humiliated him enough in public – scorning his proposal; leaving him for a _battle_ – and she does not want to do this in front of their guards and advisors. Out in the open. He is a private man. This, at the least, she can afford him easily.

“As m‘lady commands.”

She punches his shoulder. Because.

Lord Baratheon has the gall to laugh at her.

 

–

 

She‘s nervous when Brienne and Jaime leave her for the night. Nervous and frightened because what she is facing down is, truly, more fearsome than Death could ever be. At least, once you knew Death, your life would be over, your soul freed. But this… This could be eternal jail. With nowhere else to go.

She is not the Lady that the Lord Baratheon needs. She is no Lady at all. And he cannot… he cannot--

“You are going to wear trenches into the stone under your feet, m‘lady.”

“Don‘t call me that.”

She has heard the door. She has heard his footsteps. She can’t not. For someone who is quiet in voice, everything else about him is so loud. His feet. His breath. His heart. She seizes him up because she doesn’t remember looking at people in another way.

He seems even taller now, in her chambers – his shadow dancing in the twin-flames of the fires around them and for a brief moment she wonders if he adheres to the same God of Light his uncle has but figures that Gendry Waters hasn’t truly ever had Faith – maybe, in the Seven, in the Smith – and that Gendry Baratheon may be a new man, but not all that much.

They face each other and while he is unarmed, in contrast to her, his garb seems lighter – less encumbering (she has chosen thick garbs not for the chill but for the disguise it offers her). He doesn’t seize her up but there is something in his eyes that makes her aware… that he knows. Knows that this is a fight; a spar in a way.

This is a fight of a different kind than what she‘s used to. But she‘s known this going in. Their first, greeting, blows are exploratory, curious. An attempt at finding ground for both to stand on, equally guarded.

A brief smile tugs at his lips as he goes for the drinks on the table and pour the two of them a glass each. “...I think I actually get to call you what I want. Given… well, given that at least in the eyes of the Queen I am of your standing.”

She startles because this is, of course, something Gendry would say if he were to be mulish. She likes it (sometimes) when he is but in this case… He makes a show of drinking from both cups before leaving her the choice. He might not be a good host, and no one would drink from a cup that has touched the lips of another, not among the high-born, but he knows how to soothe her.

“...You always were”, she say softly when she comes to pick a cup. His sense of guest-right is a little warped but even in his nearness he doesn’t overstep boundaries. She is safe with him. She always has been.

“You would think that, of course.”, he takes a sip from his cup, mulling, “But I was always just Gendry Waters, lowborn bastard smith from Flea Bottom.” He takes another sip.

“Just Gendry Waters was always fine for me.”, she says quietly, clutching her cup. It doesn’t smell overly strong but she doesn’t doubt that it’s wine and she doesn’t know how that will do with her stomach as it is currently.

He sets his cup down and cautiously leans against the table. She puts the cup down, finds that she fiddles too much with it; gives too much of herself away. He has become shrewd in reading people. Or only in reading her and it is unsettling. She wants to pace again.

“...Why are you here, Arya?”

“I…”, she has to answer him. The time has come but she can’t. She wants to. Yes. He is an honest man. Honourable. Loyal. Stupid. Like father, she realizes with a jolt, and she knows – then – that she could come to love him. But before that she has to be honest. And she hasn’t needed to be in such a long time.

Her hands flutter to her stomach, but divert at the last possible moment because he cannot know yet. Her hands land on the hilts of her weapons, reflexively but that doesn’t feel right either. She is not a threat to him. She’s not. But hanging at her side, it doesn’t feel quite right either – she lets it be though. And just looks at him.

He has watched her – is watching her. Categorizing her. Trying to at least. She doesn’t think he has too much to go on – and really, he might think he knows her but she’s a stranger.

Bright blue eyes catch hers in the light of the fires, glint golden with its reflection and she knows in that moment that he looks at her like a man looks at a woman – he is Gendry and she is Arya. Yes. But he is also… he is a man. And she is the woman he is looking at.

“I told you, you were beautiful.”, his voice is gravely, soothing.

Arya wants to cry and wonders if it is the hysteria she’s heard woman have in their child-bearing-months. “And what good has beauty ever done anyone.” She is angry at him. She doesn’t want beauty. Has never wanted it. Has always sworn off it. Ever since Arya Underfoot and Arya Horseface. She is not beautiful.

“I told you that this would mean nothing without you.”

Back when he bent the knee to her, when he asked, bubbling over with excitement. When her duty had still not been done. When she had not _known._

She lifts anger to mask her. “And what good has it ever done anyone--”, a thought comes to her and she turns to him, “No, what good has it ever done a Baratheon to want for a Stark.”

He is Gendry when he speaks. But she can see what others might have meant by seeing Robert in him. If this had been what Robert Baratheon had been back when he was young – not merely in looks but in _character…_ “...I don‘t know the history of our houses. Aside from the fact that your father apparently was friend to mine.”

“Aye.”, she snarls at him, “And yours was a fat drunkard with no patience for allowing women to say no.” It’s unfair to speak so of the dead; but it’s not a falsehood. Not really.

His brows furrow. “Is that what you‘re afraid of.”

No. Yes. ...Yes. In a way. “Gendry. Last time a Baratheon wanted a Stark and couldn‘t get her, he ursurped the throne.”

“I have no designs on the throne.”

He wouldn’t, of course. Despite his family’s history of wanting to claim it for them, he has always been a humble one – she can give him that. And he is too honest for the game of thrones. Too honest, even, to turn down the Keep that the Dragon Queen had allotted him after he’d been the last Baratheon standing come True Morning. He is the one who will tighten his hold on his new place – he will _know_ it, because as stupid as he is, he knows where he has come from.

“No you don‘t.”, she concedes. She knows this. “But what… What is it that you want?”

It is her looking at him then. Seeing the tall stature of a man who should have been broken, by his fate in Flea Bottom, by his fate on the trek to The Wall, by the Red Priestess, by the seas that had to have nearly swallowed him, by his family, by the land beyond the wall, by The Long Night. And yet, here he is. Tall, stupid, and hers to look at.

She knows him. She knows his hallowed breaths into the crook of her neck. She knows his fingers on her. She knows him. But not all of him.

He starts haltingly, cautious, as if exploring the idea for the very first time. It might as well be, she figures. “…I… never really wanted much of anything, really. Wanted a bed. Wanted food. Wanted shelter. Got that with Tobho Mott. Lasted until my ten and eighth. Then I just wanted to survive. Then I wanted the scrappy girl at my side to survive too.”

His eyes catch hers again, startlingly blue, arresting. “...Then I wanted to come to her home, just like she said I could. But then… Then I wanted to _not serve_ anymore. To be… To be my own man.”

“...Then I wanted to not burn. And then I wanted to never see the sea again. Then I wanted to see you again. And then… I wanted to survive again. Worse than before. And I didn‘t want you to live then, because surely that had to be more merciful.” His voice is rough, troubled and raw but honest, and she sees the emotion in his eyes; the tears she is certain she has none of – she wonders if they could have all ended up in his head; for him to spill instead of her.

“Then I wanted you to survive. So badly. And I… I wanted you. Too. And then I wanted to just _not_ ache when I hear the wolves in my forests. Or when I see village girls playing at Arya Stark, Nightslayer.”

He speaks fondly of this and his eyes trace her, linger on Needle and on The Blade, before they fall to the ground, and indistinct spot between them. His arms cross over his chest, protectively, and his swallow is loud in her ears. She is almost afraid to ask. Her hands have come to cradle her belly again, instinctively. She would curse herself if the motion wasn’t so soothing.

“...And what do you want now?”

His throat clicks and his arms tighten, one of his feet comes to cross the other ankle. His body is closing off, expecting the hurt, expecting attack. He doesn’t want any of it, and yet his voice is as steady as he can make it when he answers – still not looking up at her. He is afraid – so afraid – and yet here he is. If anyone would ever call him a coward, she would gauge their eyes out and feast on their heart.

“...I want to be good for the people. I want them to not suffer. I want… I want…”, he stops, barely whispers when he continues, “I want you. But I also want you to come to me and I want to not ache when I think of you. And I want to bash in the face of anyone who‘s ever made it onto your list. And I want… I want to give people peace. I want them to have food. I want them to have shelter. ...I want you to have shelter. I want you to have peace. I still… I still want you to be with me but--”

“What if I could?”

He moves then, towards her, a soft, pained thing of a smile painting his face and she doesn’t like it and allows him to pull her against him. He’s been a brother before – she has always embraced her brothers.

“Arya.”, he sighs, pulls her closer, his lips are in her hair. No One would have skewered him for coming so close. And she still might. But he is talking to Arya Stark – the woman who had chosen him when the night had been dark and full of terrors. “Sweet, strong, fearless Arya. You chose me because you know me. Have known me for years and have never had reason to fear me. I‘m a friend.”

It sounds derogatory coming from him. She needs to correct him.

“That‘s better than what I could expect from anyone else who just wants to tame the She-Wolf from the North.”, he has to know this, “Dangle a glinting trophy from their arm and be patted on the shoulder by men for pupping the Nightslayer.”

He is quiet but holds her closer for a brief moment before she steps away, finds his eyes. They are… current. Burning. And she remembers the bite of the snake-like fish Braavosi sometimes caught and held in glasses. The Kindly Man had explained that it was not so much a _bite_ as it was a natural instinct of the fish; a hunting instinct. A generation of… something; lightning. Stunning prey and snatching them. The bigger the fish, the harder the lightning.

Gendry Baratheon is big. And his eyes hold lightning at this moment. But if the rumours are true then her eyes are the storm. And lightning has not yet conquered a storm. She stands tall against him.

“I‘m none of that, you hear me, Gendry Baratheon. I‘m not the Nightslayer. I‘m No One. I‘m just--”

The lightning eases and his arms come back around her. “You‘re just Arya. Just Arry.”

She wonders if he _understands_ this time. “...What do you want?”

The room is warm in his embrace and it’s so much easier to not look at him when she’s speaking, but that’s exactly why she has to look at him. It’s her turn to attack; his turn to parry. She _looks_ at the people she fights with – Gendry is not different.

Still she has to swallow around her dry throat. “I want… I want freedom.”, he will have truths from her. “I want to not sit and needlepoint. I want to fight. I want to hunt. I want to ride. I want…”

 _Truth_ , she reminds herself. “I don‘t want to be married, but if I have to be then I want for my husband to keep asking me what I want. I want to have a say. I want to not have to dance. I want to not wear dresses. I want to explore. I want… I want to be no Lady of anything. I want to not have to run a Keep. I want for my daughters to inherit if I had any. I want to not die under the weight of the name of another man. I want to be able to go to Winterfell when it suits me and when they need me. I want to run with my Wolves. I want--”

His eyes le her know that he truly does understand. “You want to be just Arya?”

But it’s not that easy either. She wishes it were but she has been too many to be just the one. “Sometimes I want to be Arry and not have to deal with any of this. And then other times I want to be No One and mind my own needle work. But I‘m Arya Stark, of Winterfell… And I want to keep my name.”

Her hands have found his. And it is her, then, who understands that, truly, he has never been the same as her – and wouldn’t that be boring if he were – and that she has to spell her wishes out for him. Only for him though. She has to make certain he knows her. And no one has ever been more hell-bent on knowing her as he has. He knows that she is making a concession – a condition – his gut tells him but his heart is such another matter.

“What are you saying?”

Oh his beautiful heart. The thing that she doesn’t truly deserve. Not after hers is so cold and ashen – coal to the purity of his. He will readily besmirch his own name and title but the kernel of what he is will always be so clean.

“I…” _I have your child_ , she wants to say it. She needs to say it. But his hands feel so much better on her lower abdomen than hers – better even when hers cover his and she prays… She can’t say the words, she doesn’t know how. For all her vaunted literacy and her skilled tongue this is something she cannot say.

His hands span her so easily, cover against her furs what she knows is theirs. Their making. Their future. Whether he accepts her or not. _This_ is theirs. His throat works around his words, his lips shine with the wetness he eases on them when he draws his lips in and something like _hope_ shines in his eyes, a shiver goes through him and he steps closer again. Wonder follows him. Shivers are all he is.

“Is this-- Are you--”, he has her tears, he sheds them, braver than she ever could be in this fight.

“When I was younger, I never wanted this.”, she admits in a whisper, doesn’t want to disturb the warm air in the room with her cold words, with her winter breath; she confesses a way around her selfish heart, “Couldn‘t imagine it. Still can‘t. I don‘t… A part of me doesn‘t want this.” _Truth._

Her tears still track his cheek, vanish in the shadow of a beard on his jaw. He knows that of all people, she would have the power to take it away. And he _fears_ it and that… that is what has her so afraid. If there is a man in this Kingdom who she will betray herself for, it would be Gendry Waters. Lord Baratheon. He has a power over her he doesn’t understand. She doesn’t like it. And she hasn’t been afraid of a lot of things in a long time. But this. This she is afraid of. He can shackle her.

“...What about the other part?”, he finally asks, his voice is wrecked. Small. Ill-fitting for the tall, strong man in front of her, Baratheon antlers glint in the fires from his throat. She stares at them and wills herself not to fear the word of his name.

“Can you promise me that I will have a choice? Can you promise me that I will have a word and freedom?”

A sound punches from deep within him, she feels it gurgle up from the point under his middle-ribs, where the voice sits, and it’s a sob and a laugh at the same time. He wants to hold her but doesn’t dare to and his hands flitter over her nervously, searchingly as he swallows around the tear-tracks once more.

“I… Arya.”, she thinks he might want to kiss her and she is so, so grateful that he doesn’t, not then. “I… I want to give you what you need. But I am not good with words, and I will need you to tell me. Precisely. No hinting at it; no expecting me to just know. I‘ve never been in this life and I will blunder, you hear me?”

Any Lady would have been lucky to have him. Any. They should have been clamouring to get their hands on this gentle giant; they should have been making doe-eyes at him, cooing over him. There would have been a perfect fawn for him, the most beautiful roe who would have held his hand, gently, and who would have had no bite, who would have guided him through the woods, peacefully.

Arya Stark is a wolf. She chases things like him but-- Maybe that is precisely why she is here. No hind can pursue. And this buck doesn’t know how to do the pursuing properly. Not when he has been raised with sheep all his life.

So she smiles and tries to make light of it. “Yeah, I know you will. You‘re stupid like that.”

He is. He should have turned her away the moment she’d stepped off her horse. But instead he’s let her punch his shoulder as if they were on the track to The Wall, call him stupid and lord over him like he always has allowed her to. But he hasn’t – and he has no delusions, either, of taming her. He knows that’s not her. Not the wolf. The North can never be tamed.

But, she thinks, neither can the storms, really.

He chuckles wetly and raises a hand to her cheek. If it comes away wet she doesn’t notice it. “Maybe.”, he acquiesces, “But I also want you. And I want you to have peace, Nightslayer, as much as you can have it with your hot blood. So I promise to do what I can to give you what you want so long as it is in my power to give it. But--”

She stills and stiffens, because there is always a but. Gendry notices and his eyes go gentle, the lighting eases until only the smoothness of the sea remains, his hand stays on her cheek, soothing the beast he has no intention to tame--

“But I will need your help. Now and again. And not just for running a Keep or whatever it will end up as because I have no idea of doing that. I want… Arya I want… us to try, at least. Please. I‘m not perfect. I‘m a stupid, bull-headed bastard smith who somehow drew a lucky straw and suddenly turned out to be a high-born bastard and now I have a Keep that I will surely ruin if I don‘t have help. ...Will you try, at least, to help me do good for the people?”

\--only to befriend. Peace for his people. Peace for the people he comes from. He has a chance to make it happen now. She can see it. She would want no different – wants no different – for the people in Wintertown. In the North. She has once been a Princess of the North and his family has been hell-bent on being Royal and he has no wish for that. But he does want his people to be cared for – wants to not have them suffer like he has.

“I will.”, her words are swallowed by his kiss, by the fervour of his wet lips, he tastes salty and warm, open and vulnerable, blooded as he hoists her up, pulls her close and she allows it. She can say No, if she doesn’t want to.

 _Truth_ , she thinks again, _he will have it from me._ Not much else is left to her sometimes.

“Thank you.”, he sighs against her lips, catches them again, cradles her, strong but softly against him, “...Thank you.”

 

–

 

He makes love to her again that night, drawing his hands down the thickness of her thighs and her midst. She‘s still not showing much, but her body is _more_ than it has been before and he is so stupidly careful with her when his lips sink onto her, worry the flower of her pleasure as his tongue spears into her and licks her with the languid determination of a man who knows that he has time.

Her legs quiver around his head, short black hair fanning over her skin where it is growing back from the curt shear he’d been sporting back in Winterfell. She likes it, holds on to it when the dam of sensation breaks in her and floods her like an ocean-tide, erupting from where is still licking at her, watching her, listening to her.

This time, it’s him on top and there are so little words spoken when he sinks into her but his body says so much and she has trouble accepting all that he lays bare before her. She wouldn’t listen back in Winterfell; couldn’t allow herself to but he is so honest and open with it that it almost _hurts_.

It doesn’t pain her this time around; maybe because he is gentle, or maybe because her maidenhead has already been his, and she feels slicker and hotter than she remembers having been in the Forge. The bedding is better too.

Her hands clutch at his shoulders as her hips roll too meet his, languidly, exploratively. He makes to distance himself from her, leaning on his palm next to her ear, watching her. But her hands score at him and he adapts, shifts until he is on his elbow and pressed so closely against her that the heat of the fire couldn’t warm her better than the warmth of his skin on hers. Their mouths meet and his unoccupied hand slithers to the flare of her waist, spans her. He’s so large his thumb effortlessly comes to lie on the flower of her pleasure and when he moves again the friction is just right.

“Arya…”

She nips his neck, spans his hips with her knees, pulls him closer, pulls him in and gives over to the roll and retreat of his sea-shore-movements until they are slick between them and his steadying hand next to her head has found way into her hair. The snap of his hips is ferocious against her and it jolts her just… so… rightly… _There_.

Her body clutches at him when the ocean of pleasure washes over her this time, her lips delve into his shoulder, suckling at the salty sweat there, biting at the skin even as he ducks to lick at her breast and their hips smack one more time, twice, before he stills inside of her, clutches her with iron-band hands and arms, shivers and quivers and breathes raggedly, but won’t let her go.

“Don’t leave, please.”, He says quietly when he falls to the side of her and draws her up against him. “Please not yet.”

It should irk her that he would think she would leave already after this but-- She is also pleased that he is aware now. That he knows that, at some point, she will leave.

“When I do… I will return to you. No matter how long it takes.”

He holds her tighter, but nods into her skin. She is hot where they touch – he’s a furnace all of his own – but pleasantly so and when he pulls their furs higher around them, she goes into his embrace willingly.

 

–

 

She doesn’t throw up in the morning.

 

 


End file.
